Page 44 of Drift

Frowning, Jack headed over. “You okay, soft lad?”

He looked… disturbed, but no tears came, and fuck. This was the touch Gray didn’t ever want on Jan, because the look of hurt had changed over the years, took longer to spill. Jan had toughened up when he shouldn’t have needed to.

“Chris…” Jan frowned. “He’s in hospital after an RTA. But Monique… Jason, her brother… he died. He was murdered along with his wife and kid.”

Murdered…. At least that confirmed Monique had also been told a third party was involved. Monique hadn’t had to face murder/suicide accusations. It wouldn’t ease her hurt, but it would focus blame in the right ways, away from family.

Jack fell quiet, then an arm slipped Jan’s neck and pulled him in before worry in Jack’s look came Gray’s way. “Fuck.”

“Yeah…. Fuck.” Jan slipped a hold around Jack and buried his head in his shoulder. Gray knew what this echoed when it came to Rob and his kid, how Jan had lost his ex-lover. “Christ. She was just saying at dinner how she hadn’t heard from him,” added Jan.

Gray went and poured him a whiskey, then took it over. “Here.”

Jan looked his way, and the blankness still hit Gray hard. Death and murder seemed too normal a shore for Jan to walk.

Jan took the drink, then—“Christ. Monique’s breakdown.” He looked sharply at Gray, at Jack…. “Do you think they’re connected?”

Jack stiffened, and Gray rubbed at his arm. “Go on, go on through to the kitchen. We’ll talk there, okay?” said Gray. Jan turned away, and Jack went with him as Gray went over to pour a set of drinks for all three of them.

But as he picked them up, four rings came through on his phone, then cut into silence.

Gray tilted his ear towards it, his look on the fireplace.

Eventually he put the drinks down and took out the phone and thumbed through to a message that came through.

The number was unknown, but the location that mentioned a time to be there, the images he was sent?

Jaw tightening, Gray took the drinks on through to the kitchen, and Jack eased back in his seat when he only saw two drinks.

“We’re losing you again, huh?” That came off Jan. “They’re finally calling you to heel?”

They’d both no doubt caught the four rings on the phone.

Gray flicked a look at Jack. “Tell him about the breakdown. Look after him.” Then he was with Jan. “I’ll be back in a few hours. We’ll talk about anything else then.” He couldn’t risk not being here for Jack when it came to talk on Cutter… kids, andhis look warned Jan not to say anything either. “But I’m going to need you to stay away from Monique—”

“Wait…what? Now of all times, and….” Jan eased to his feet. “Hang on. Back in the car, when Monique got a call off Brennan… you, you said I should go in with her. That she’d need it. Youknewabout Jase—” His eyes startled. “Is that what your Nottingham business was in Wales? Shaun sent you there?”

Yeah. Kid was too damn sharp. “We’ll talk when I get back,” he said to Jan. “But you need to stay clear of Monique, okay? Repeat nothing you’re told.”

Jan paled. With Gray being called in, he would know it would be at culler level, with the potential of a fast-lane psychopath behind it all.

“She’ll get protection, right? Monique?”

Gray nodded. “Shaun will have requested she stay at the MC, which puts her close to Raif and security there. Raif’s on standby to head surveillance with her and Andrea, and will be until this is sorted. But I need to go and handle this,” he said as he put the drinks on the table.

“We’re good,” Jack said up to him. “I’m here for Jan. You go. Don’t worry about protection.”

Gray kissed at his cheek. Jan’s.

He’d known he’d face the Monarchy eventually.

He just hadn’t expected it to be the personal location he’d received a few moments ago.

Chapter 14

THORN IN THE SIDE

Touching 9.30 at night, Gray sat outside of the disused barn in amongst a glade of private land. The front door hung off its hinge, giving a brief glint of moonlight off gardening shears as it broke through the chill and overhanging trees. Set away from any main roads, it usually took an hour and a half to get here, but today, it had taken him only an hour.

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